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Passing Greatness

I'm intrigued by this lineup due to the passing abilities of all the players:

Hibbert: Already acknowledged to be an excellent passer at center

McRoberts: Passing may be his best attribute

Lance: Could become elite as a passer

Collison: His assists numbers last year showed he has skills

Granger: Actually perhaps the weakest of the five at passing, but still, he is a decent to above average passer. I've seen him make some very clever dimes. He just has been put in a role where he mostly shoots.

Anyway, this group of five on the floor could be very, very interesting to watch. Three or four of those players could be described as elite passers, or could become that way depending on how things develop.

Last edited by McKeyFan; 08-14-2010 at 01:22 PM.

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"I like our group of people," Ainge told USA Today. "I'm trying to teach them about basketball, and they're trying to teach me about analytics."

Re: Passing Greatness

I'm intrigued by this lineup due to the passing abilities of all the players:

Hibbert: Already acknowledge to be an excellent passer at center

McRoberts: Passing may be his best attribute

Lance: Could become elite as a passer

Collison: His assists numbers last year showed he has skills

Granger: Actually perhaps the weakest of the five at passing, but still, he is a decent to above average passer. I've seen him make some very clever dimes. He just has been put in a role where he mostly shoots.

Anyway, this group of five on the floor could be very, very interesting to watch. Three or four of those players could be described as elite passers, or could become that way depending on how things develop.

Great post! Very good points as Mildlysane said! I agree this would be a very interesting group to watch. That could be a great passing team and those are the teams that are hard to stop.

Re: Passing Greatness

I'm intrigued by this lineup due to the passing abilities of all the players:

Hibbert: Already acknowledge to be an excellent passer at center

McRoberts: Passing may be his best attribute

Lance: Could become elite as a passer

Collison: His assists numbers last year showed he has skills

Granger: ...He just has been put in a role where he mostly shoots.

About Hibbert - yes, very much on his way as a complete player (do we believe he can't be at least average on the defensive board some day? Surely not). One thing to note about his passing - he was third in the league, per minute, in assists at the rim for 20-minute or more centers.

Josh - it's good to see people recognize this strength. 2nd in the league among 10-minute or more PF's in Assist/Turnover ratio - outstanding feel for the game (and that's especially intriguing, combined with his athleticism). But to be effective making plays he's just got to get better at his jump shot, either a 15-18 or a 3-pointer. At this point he shoots them about equally well (which means poorly from 15-18, and well from the arc), so it makes a lot of sense to use him as a stretch big, though to do that and use his playmaking skills he'll have to improve his ball-handling.

Lance - I agree with you that putting him with Collison is gold. Lance will break down defenses, and Darren and Danny will get driving lanes and open looks out of it.

Collison - like Stephenson, he's been accused of pounding the ball and calling his own number, but I think that that's inaccurate in both cases.

Granger - well, they needed him to score. The addition of Darren changes the whole dynamic around Danny.

Hard to tell if Josh is going to break through this year, but I'd also point out that Tyler is a good passer, too, alongside the other nice odds and ends he brings (you don't usually see rookies taking so many charges, for example).

I love the idea of putting a lineup of shot creators (I know that you said passers, which I'm expanding on) on the floor together. I'd propose substituting Hansbrough for McRoberts, and then you don't just get a lot of open shots, but also draw a ton of fouls, as all five guys can do that (Hibbert's going to get there sooner or later), and what's predictable is that those five can also all become grade-A FT shooters, or are already there.
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"Defense doesn't break down on the help, it breaks down on the recovery." - Chuck Daly

"The first shot does not beat you." - Chuck Daly

"To play defense and not foul is an art that must be mastered if you are going to be successful." - Chuck Daly

Re: Passing Greatness

I know McBob is a fantastic passer, which is why I used him in this list. I just can't remember either way on Tyler's passing.

I wasn't trying to improve your thought experiment about a strong passing lineup - Josh is almost as good as it gets for a passing big man. But I think that substituting Tyler for him (we don't have to add "if he's able to play" every single time we write his name, do we?) adds some very interesting dimensions to your "starting five", and I think that it's also a more likely lineup, given the level of McRoberts' development. Tyler was a very good offensive rebounder (in limited court time) last year, for instance, while Josh hasn't shown much on either board.

When we're talking about passing, we're thinking about how players create an open shot for one another, so shot creation is the superset, if you will, of that. Tyler is not as good a passer as Josh, but he can get points for himself by drawing fouls (I think he'll shoot FG's at a decent clip, too, once he gets a regular rhythm and minutes), and drawing fouls helps the team by getting them in the bonus (a kind of assist, if you will).
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Last edited by O'Bird; 08-14-2010 at 02:35 PM.

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"Defense doesn't break down on the help, it breaks down on the recovery." - Chuck Daly

"The first shot does not beat you." - Chuck Daly

"To play defense and not foul is an art that must be mastered if you are going to be successful." - Chuck Daly

Re: Passing Greatness

I wasn't trying to improve your thought experiment about a strong passing lineup - Josh is almost as good as it gets for a passing big man. But I think that substituting Tyler for him (we don't have to add "if he's able to play" every single time we write his name, do we?) adds some very interesting dimensions to your "starting five", and I think that it's also a more likely lineup, given the level of McRoberts' development. Tyler was a very good offensive rebounder (in limited court time) last year, for instance, while Josh hasn't shown much on either board.

Okay. We agree McBob is a great passer. But do you remember Tyler passing well?

I remember good court awareness, finding good position to get the pass, etc. I just don't remember him passing that much. And that could be more due to him being given the role of finisher rather than playmaker.

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"I like our group of people," Ainge told USA Today. "I'm trying to teach them about basketball, and they're trying to teach me about analytics."

Greating Passness

Okay. We agree McBob is a great passer. But do you remember Tyler passing well?

I think that you'll see it clearly when he's getting a lot of minutes. He's an efficient passer, has very good feel for flow and not turning it over. I'd remind you that he went to North Carolina, one of the ultimate "system" programs in the NCAA, for four years. He was criticized for his production in his senior year, and it was suggested that he was picked lower in the draft because of it - but he was just doing his job in their system.

Of course, O'Brien wanted him getting into the lane and to the line to get them points in the paint and FT's, and that's not going to change. Like Granger, you don't want him passing up scoring opportunities.
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Last edited by O'Bird; 08-14-2010 at 02:48 PM.
Reason: cocaleecoh

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"Defense doesn't break down on the help, it breaks down on the recovery." - Chuck Daly

"The first shot does not beat you." - Chuck Daly

"To play defense and not foul is an art that must be mastered if you are going to be successful." - Chuck Daly

Re: Passing Greatness

When we're talking about passing, we're thinking about how players create an open shot for one another, so shot creation is the superset, if you will, of that. Tyler is not as good a passer as Josh, but he can get points for himself by drawing fouls (I think he'll shoot FG's at a decent clip, too, once he gets a regular rhythm and minutes), and drawing fouls helps the team by getting them in the bonus (a kind of assist, if you will).
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Shouldn't shot creation, in the presence of players with passing ability, be a subset of a quality passing game as opposed to shot creation being the superset above passing?

This is the crux of the arguments against what we have seen that has led to a lot of our difficulties as a team. An offense that stagnates as a result of players being told to look for shots early in the clock, or before the defense sets up, and, failing to do that effectively, the offense breaks down and our players from our driving pgs out to our perimeter players get hung up and don't have adequate driving or passing lanes due to having looked for their shots instead of each other.

Obviously, the ability to make shots mitigates this inadequacy to an extent, as it does all other basketball inadequacies for that matter, but when shots no longer fall our team has gotten beaten like a drum with no passing game to fall back on because the players either are being instructed to look for passes mostly when they have no option to create their own shot, or are not able to comprehend when passing is more advisable than creating their own shot (calling their own number) in any given situation.

If passing is given a higher level of importance in the minds of the players than it has been, in my opinion, the players will have more opportunity to create higher quality shots in the flow of an offense that they will recognize gives them more opportunities for touches and scores, and players will be more likely to find those with the hot hand when it is appropriate, and fewer of our customary pg mistakes will be made, resulting in fewer turnovers.

And, the all important spacing will occur naturally as defenses are forced to work longer and harder to defend. Nobody can outrun a properly thrown pass. That is fundamental, and it needs to be emphasized as the primary element of spacing the court as opposed to simply having the making perimeter shots be the key element to making defenses defend the perimeter and not sag into the paint as they tend to currently.